2007-04-29T06:02:00.000-07:00

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Important Links:

http://www.virtualtourist.com
A perfect site for travellers. It is a meeting point and forum area for different travellers that have been to the different parts of the world. Just search for location and at the very least you will find 20 people who are living in the area and hundreds of people that have actually visited the area for tourists. It has tips for places to stay, restaurants, dangers to be aware of, nightlife, tours and other miscallenaous tips.

http://www.hostels.com
http://www.hostelworld.com
Two sites for finding hostels in the world. These sites provide you the places to stay with only a small extra commission. The good part is that you can leave feedback for the hostels, so if a hostel has some good recent feedback, it is more or less always guaranteed to be good. I stopped using it after some time because I felt like it was too much normalizing my trip. For me, I choose that website or my guidebook when I am travelling to a big city in which there is much to see and I do not want to miss it because I did not talk to the other travellers that go to the same big recommended hostels. But for smaller cities I generally choose to create my own adventure entering a hotel after seeing the place.

http://www.amazon.com
http://www.lonelyplanet.com
http://www.footprintbooks.com/
http://www.letsgo.com
The last 3 are the websites for the main guidebooks that you can use to visit a place. You always need to visit a place with a guidebook, you know it right? =) That is the place where you will get the most valuable information. For selecting the best guide book, just check amazon and read the feedback for the books. The best for mexico is letsgo, for costa rica, I was pretty happy with lonely planet, I was also happy with Lonely planet brazil. Footprints south america was ok, but not the greatest book honestly.
They are also the places where you can write to them by the option contact us and let them know if you were cheated during your travels by agencies and/or hotels etc.
In any case it is always a good idea to search through the guidebooks before going through a country to have a better idea for where to visit.

http://www.couchsurfing.com/
This is the website where people in different countries and cities provide you free accommodation, it is exactly like any other chain networks. You stay in the house of a local for free, then leave feedback for the stay and also they leave feedback for you. In that sense it is a social network, they help you go around and get friendly with you. What they get is a friend in another country with whom they can definitely stay, and experience of a traveller and what he has seen in his travels. I only met a few guys from couch surfing but they were definitely all very cool guys.

What to take and what not to take:
What not to take:
1. Mobile phone: A definite no, no... I never used it, and I had it finally stolen at the end of my bolivia trip. It is probable that you will never use it either, especially as we are in the internet age, there is always some internet at some corner location, and if you are not able to reach internet in a location, it is most likely an area where you can not have mobile phone access anyways. It is perfect for having another cool gadget of yours stolen like it happened to me.
2. Umbrella: It seemed cool for me at the first time, I bought a really good umbrella which is relatively light (300 gr. or sth like that) and can open very wide if needed although normally compact. It was the perfect umbrella to take if you need one, but what I ended up doing was carrying that umbrella everywhere and not using it at all seriously. I had especially bought it for amazonas, and never used it in amazonas. Instead of it by a poncho that will protect you when you need it really, that will not get torn down by the wind and will protect you from water down to your pants without any trouble. And also it will be much lighter and easier to carry too.
3. Thousands of medicine: I made that mistake, I always bought a package of medicine that I would need for 6 months. If I go for a longer trip, I will never take that much anymore, maybe only sudafed sinusoidal headaches or some other medicine that I will be using frequently, but other than that, just the main stuff just enough for a small amount of time. Because you are definitely not going to a place where there are only tribes and witch doctors, you are travelling to a place where you can find some pharmacies, and thus you can buy extra of your medicine whenever you feel so.
4. Crappy second hand ipod: It was my biggest mistake to buy a second hand ipod which was barely able to hold for 4 minutes after charging for 5 hours. Buy a new one if you really feel like you will need an ipod or any other mp3 player.
5. Crappy inner belt: The second biggest mistake. Always take the best belt you can find, I made the mistake to buy the guys from the internet, you should always be able to test your inner belt inside you before buying it.
6. Not enough memory: My third biggest mistake, special thanks to Cihan for this!!!! Anyways, if you do not have enough memory it is really sure that you will regret it at some point in your travel. For me I think that 3 GB was a little short for a 6 month trip. So at least arrange 1GB for every two months, if you ask me arrange more...
7. Really expensive big fancy camera you want to carry everywhere: If you ask me it is not a good idea. It is for some people, I am not the type that likes to show the camera everywhere, at the very least for security purposes. And also it is a hassle to carry it everywhere too.
8. No digital camera: No good idea. You will want to take loads of pictures. In my trip to southern europe, I took like 500 pictures, and more than 250 were bad because they had some light or some were radiated by X-rays etc. Have a digital camera see the results of your pictures, take more pictures if you dont like the original ones, and back up them to a dvd rather than risking losing the fewer pictures you took without knowing even how the pictures actually are.

What to take:
1. Rope: Very important if you end up in a place where you can not find any laundry.
2. Lots of trashbags and sealable plastic bags: Definitely useful for all your laundry and stuff you do not want to get wet during rains and rivers. And also it is perfect for sealing the tooth paste, shampoos and other stuff that may leak rather than having the bad surprise later.
3. A very good bag always with double zippers, which will allow you to lock your bag in semi-secure areas. I can not over emphasize this, a strong bag is the most important thing that you will need in any kind of your travels after a very good shoe.
5. A small pack of toothpaste, small box of shaving creme and a pocket knife: Definitely the main idea here is small.... It is important because it allows you to have some space for other necessary equipments.
6. Eyebands and earplugs: Trust me when I first started I thought I did not need earplugs as I can sleep well in general in sound conditions too. I was sooo wrong... Just sleep one night in San Jose in the hotel room that looks at the street and you will understand what I mean. No better devices than those little ear devils when you need them.
7. Headlight: The best thing that you should take and I did not. It is a camper equipment with leds and a head band, you can put it into your head and you will be able to read anything on the road no matter how crappy buses you are travelling with or no matter where in the forest you are.
8. Hand sanitizer: You will definitely understand why you need it once you start eating in crappy places.
9. small plastic perfume bottles: One of the best stuff I had with me. Those plastic bottles you can use to store anything, I used it to store my vitamins, my sun protection creme, my additional medicine and everything. The best part is that they are really packed so easy to carry with your daypack, you can use them for anything and carry whatever you need with you in the daypack having the larger stock in your backpack.
10. Hair drier: This is personal, I have sinusitis. But there is also another reason why you should get this with you. In case there are problems with you finding a laundry, this gadget becomes the perfect drier for your clothes too when you wash them by hand, and there are really small hair driers that you can use for this trip too. But it is optional as I said.

Additional fun or smart stuff to do:
1. Tear down your guidebook =): No it is not a joke. After seeing every single place I was tearing down my guidebook for the pages that I did not need. Trust me you will not need that damn guidebook again, and for that sense neither anybody else. Because 2 years after the time you return, the guidebook will be old, the places written on the guidebook will be closed out dated changed numbers, etc. So definitely tear down the pages that you dont need anymore or you will not need, you will be surprised that how lighter your backpack will get.
2. Take a hat with you: I personally had a special relationship with my hat. It of course did protect me from sun etc. But also it had a character. It was definitely my favorite accessory in my trip, and it is one of the symbols of my trip.
3. Make a blog: It is definitely fun to work on, and makes other people aware of the places you visit too. Not only this but also it makes your memories stay forever. A diary is the regular equipment people use, but once you lose a diary it is lost forever all. A website is much more guaranteed to last much longer and be much more fun with all the pictures and your memories inside.
4. Learn some local language with Pimsleur: There is a company called pimsleur who sell audio tapes for learning different languages. I already knew basic spanish, having finished all their tapes for spanish when I was on my way to mexico. And now I can confidently say I know intermediate spanish and I can communicate in spanish to anyone I meet on the street when I am on one to one. What is more, using that spanish I was even able to learn some Brazilian Portuguese, so now I know two more languages =)

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tips for travellers